


As Portioned from a Whole

by cannibalinc



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anti-Muggle Content, First War with Voldemort, Harry is Voldemort's little prince, Hate Speech, M/M, Mentor Voldemort, Post-First War with Voldemort, Tom Riddle | Voldemort Adopts Harry Potter, Voldemort Raises Harry, War, it's creepy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-01 14:41:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6524323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cannibalinc/pseuds/cannibalinc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Voldemort undermines the Prophecy and raises the infant Harry Potter as his; in all aspects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Abstruse

To hold something in one's Hand, Something of great destiny and of potential, Voldemort will keep his palms open; wait for it to fall into place, for the moment it slithers into the bars of his fingers: he is a Cage, a vessel.

Enviable.

_Mine._

Voldemort drinks in the child curled on his thighs, a scrawny thing, as though a naked birch-tree curled against a winter wind. White and half-hallow, and Voldemort holds the child close and imagines he fills the empty spaces in his small bones, the ice that makes the tree defiant.

"Harry, my Harry," he murmurs, closes his eyes into the boy's temple, briefly remembers the feeling of eyelashes as dark curls brush his cheeks."Are you really so obstinate that I cannot leave you in the care of one of my Faithful while I must travel? Must you run away from them even upon my order?"

Harry feigns sleep, a shuttering breath into the folds of his Lord's glossy robe, but Voldemort feels the clench of a fist on his chest. A small hand seeks out his own, and Voldemort willingly folds his knuckles around him, feels nail-beds bite into his palms.

"You are meek today."

At last, a wriggling, and his child peeks up at his Master's clad collar bones until just a pale forehead and pinched eyebrows are visible. Voldemort raises a hand, brushes Harry's long curls from his face so the way to his eyes is unobstructed. They have always been luminous, an unspeakable verdant, and they are so sweet when they swim with anxious tears.

"I don't like any of them," he confesses into Voldemort's sternum, and the words crawl into the gaps of Voldemort's rib cage, a strangling ivy, untamed and perfect. "I just- I..."

It appears Harry's four year old countenance has exhausted his ability to further express himself, for his returns to hiding in the folds of Voldemort's robe, his inky hair blending with the black of the material, and so blending Harry to him. They are often One, more than Two, Harry slipping beyond all barrier to press his atoms alongside the Dark Lord's, not-one pace behind him, swallowed up in the billow of Voldemort's stride and cloak. Many overlook his Harry until he has crawled up into his lap, looking as an apparition.

"You Apparated," Voldemort says, stroking Harry's back and reclining in the cushioned chair. Harry forgets his trepidation and squints up at him.

"What is that?"

"You wished to Be elsewhere and so you Are."

"I Am?" he breathes.

"We Are," Voldemort corrects, and brushes a youthful cheek. Harry seems to sense that he is not in trouble for abandoning his watchman, for Voldemort never punishes him for Magic, and to Apparate at such an age with no Where in mind, only Who, Voldemort has only praise. "How did it feel?"

Harry smiles, his eyes still dewy but mischievous, brings his small hands up, curled into balls and splays his fingers into the air. "Like a pop."

The Lord hums, the noise echoing balefully in the dark chamber of his apothecary. There is a single candle glowing in the corner, and the light reflects off of them like the face of the moon reflects the sun, cool and compelling. They sink like oil into the shadows, and Harry pulls himself closer; not out of fear for the darkness, but for comfort, as he understands well Voldemort's place within it, and so his own place in turn.

"Like I was a snake," Harry expounds further, excited, "slithering through a tunnel. Am I a Snake?"

Voldemort grins, hisses deep in his throat, pulling up from the essence of his vocal cords _My Snake_ , encased in man's flesh, _how I wish to garner you in scales_. Harry giggles, eyes wide, the sound of his Lord's True Tongue one of wonder. His small fingers reach up to touch Voldemort's mouth and Voldemort hisses simply for the child's reaction. There is a whisper of forked tongue to the tips of Harry's fingers, and he laughs and laughs.

"Where is Carrow?" he asks, a return to the voice of English, the blood of Englishman but traces in his serpent's face. "You will have her in hysterics over your disappearance."

Harry's smile does not falter, but he shakes his head. " _Nagini ate ate ate her_."

Voldemort coos, a high _tsk_ sound that rattles in his chest, and brings Harry to rest against his heart. "I will need a new following at this rate, My Harry. _You so easily offer Nagini anyone for dinner when you cannot devour them yourself_."

"I don't need to be left behind," Harry says, arms reaching around his Lord's neck. Voldemort considers this, the various trips into forests uncharted, into lands of beasts mostly forgotten by his lessers, voyages for Magics unknown, sees Harry amongst the poisons and glittering teeth...

_My Harry is built to be on my side of Inhumanity_.

"Perhaps not."

"They want to take me away from you."

"No pity to the Fool who should try," Voldemort says to the dark room, petting his child, his Dear Snake in human skin.


	2. Botanical

A mother's breast cannot be imitated.

Narcissa is not one built for motherhood. She, no Saint Mary, takes to infants as one takes to holy war; with a joyless mouth and with a foreboding sense of passionless duty. She is the equal to her counterbalance, her husband, in some ways and his superior in many, but she is not built for motherhood.

Where her body should be soft, she is granite, and where her heart should be open, she is sealed. She nurses Draco through lightyears, a distance which cannot be forged even with the most endowed implements. From the distance of many planets, all of whom direct one another with their masses and never, never touch, Draco grows up under the care of third-party hands and indirect affection. She knows not the weight of him in her arms, the pull of his hunger at her breast. She cares not to know.

She writes; to her wasting sister, and confesses her wish to trade places. She would kiss a thousand dementors than her pink-faced babe who adores her so unreservedly.

Though Narcissa remembers the delirium and pain of labour, though she remembers Lucius' face hovering as a star above her, and recalls the sound of Dear Draco's first cry in the world, she sometimes doubts that he is hers at all. How could he be, when her love for him is as severed as a numbed limb? When the child, from a face so similar to her own, is nearer a stranger than a son, and her reagard for him is as many impediments?

And then, the Dark Lord calls upon her in the dead of night.

She and Lucius share their confusion. Should He not be out willing new worlds into creation, celebrating his victory over the loom of a nebulous prophecy? Should He not be occupied with the liqueur of success and feast of celebration?

She goes to Him, and against all prediction, in battle with every understanding she has of Him, He is with child.

As though an extension of His own ribcage, as though His heart beat not for only Himself, but for the life in his arms, as though harboured in His womb, the Dark Lord cradles to Himself a squalling babe.

"I understand you have recently born a child, Narcissa," He whispers to her, stroking a finger over the full, wet cheek of a sobbing infant, never turning his ardent gaze from it. He, the Dark Lord, who could move His heart to love a child, while hers remains still!

"Yes, My Lord… Draco is one as of last month," she answers.

The Dark Lord appears not to have heard her. He hums, withdraws His wand, and for a moment she fears He will punish the child for crying so loudly. A soft burst of multicolored light shines before the child, and the crying stops. The child reaches for the bone white wand, grasps it in a chubby hand, and puts the tip in its mouth.

Narcissa holds her breath, but the Dark Lord hisses in apparent approval, His tongue flickering with the language of snakes, the air alive with His breathy exhalations.

"I am in need of amenities for a babe of similar age," He says, and at last looks up at her.

She takes a step back at His red eyes. His face is much transformed in these last few years, reflecting the image of something Above Humanity.

"You will get them for me now."

Narcissa is infuriated. What does she know of an infant's needs? What does she know of comforting their cries? Her duty was met when she birthed one, but the burden still lingers! It attacks her with sporadic contractions, these many months later, and how she wishes it would end. The Dark Lord himself presents the picture of a more perfect mother than she!

"Yes, My Lord."

She runs to where Lucius awaits just outside the tea room, calls upon a House Elf to bring her what the Dark Lord bid.

She and Lucius present the gift together, and Lucius gasps when he sees the infant.

"My Lord! The Potter child?"

The Dark Lord considers the infant, strokes its head obsessively.

"The Potter child?" He whispers to the now sleeping babe. "No, I think not. This child has been given a fate, one determined by prophecy. He was born to be Mine."


	3. Chromatic

Harry clings to his Lord's hem, wrapping the cloak around himself and glaring up at the falsely smiling adults. He knows they do not like him, and the feeling is perfectly mutual. He doesn't trust them. Lord Voldemort is the most powerful and beautiful person in the whole world, and they are not worthy to stand before Him. He crushes himself into his Lord's legs and chews on the fabric wrinkled in his fist.

"Yes, My Lord," Lucius Malfoy says, and bows. "We will be sure your ward is transported safely."

Harry snarls. " _You aren't their lord_ ," he hisses. " _You are mine_."

A large, white hand splays over his head, and Harry melts into the caress, glancing up at his Lord's face and silently pleading with him.

" _You must use English in front of the others, my treasure_."

Harry issues a long, exaggerated sigh, then looks directly at Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy.

"He is not your Lord. He is _mine._ "

"Very good, Child."

He is petted and praised, and Harry looks smugly up at the pinched face of the Malfoys, then at Lord Voldemort's pleased smile.

He presses his face into His stomach, altogether much happier.

" _Does this mean I can stay?_ "

The hand in his hair stills.

" _No, Pet. You must go with the Malfoys._ "

Harry wails; in English because he is a good boy.

"I don't want to go to Hogwarts! You said I was special! You said we would be together forever!"

He sobs as he is lifted from the floor and cradled, a hiss soothing against his ear.

"Dear child," Lord Voldemort sighs.

" _Please don't make me go,_ " Harry begs.

"You must go," and Harry does not miss the slight, that his Lord would refuse to speak in Their tongue to him. "You must learn to be a sorcerer and return to me strong. You will be home in a few months for Yule."

"Why can't you teach me?" Harry sniffles.

"I have told you that I attended Hogwarts many years ago, and made many followers by going. Do you not wish to do the same?"

Harry wraps his arms around his Lord's neck, presses his mouth to His skin. Harry hates children his own age. Especially Draco, who sulks whenever they're made to play together. They never get along and all the other kids are always mean to him, and he much prefers his Lord for company.

" _What use have I for followers when I have You?_ "

His Lord hisses, kisses his head. "Quite. Now, collect your belongings. You will not stall until the train leaves you."

Harry huffs, caught out. Lord Voldemort pries him from His body and places him firmly on the floor. He can't help the keening cry as his eyes flood with tears once more. A hand presses down on his shoulder and pulls him away, but Harry screams and lashes at Lucius Malfoy with his might. The man clutches his bleeding, mangled hand to his chest, his face a picture of rage and terror. Narcissa and Draco shout in alarm.

Harry hisses at them.

" _Harry,_ " Lord Voldemort scolds.

"Do you not love me anymore?" he demands, and the whole of the room goes still.

His Lord bends his great height until they are eye to eye, cups his tear-streaked cheeks in both hands.

" _My little snake, I would reshape the earth upon your whim, but in this matter I will not bend_ ," He hisses softly. His thumb catches Harry's next rolling tear and brings it to His mouth to taste with the flicker of a forked tongue. "You will go with the Malfoys, you will go to Hogwarts, and you will excel. Do you understand?"

Harry lets his head drop, nodding. "Yes, My Lord. But I won't apologize to Lucius."

He is petted once more before the Dark Lord draws away with finality. Harry tries to cling for His hand just one moment longer.

"No, I expect not. You shouldn't apologize to those of lower status. Lucius, put yourself together and go before you are late."

Lucius keeps his mouth shut, visibly bitter, but does as he is told. Harry is lead to stand in the hearth alongside Narcissa, and he clutches her hand nervously. He feels his lip wobble again.

" _Will you miss me?_ " he asks his Lord, who looks over his shoulder at him.

" _Every aching moment, my Harry._ "


	4. Daedalian

There are, in the auspicious halls of the scholarly elite, epics of the most venerable authority which philosophize and compartmentalize the questions of Fate, Destiny;

Prophecy.

_ The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… _

To Lord Voldemort, it is a matter not so urgently requiring calculation. To simply know one commands a Destiny is to hold a power, to evolve beyond one’s limitations. The soft kiss of promise, that the universe has given unto Him a child of such potential, and to have Albus Dumbledore so ignorantly dangle this ill-perceived threat to provoke him! 

Then truly, this glorious war is His.

“My Lord, but what is your response to this claim? Can this Prophecy hold even a drop of truth?” Lucius Malfoy implores.

His Death Eaters sit tall and dark around the table, their bodies still as gravestones, mercilessly cold and marble. They wait for His divine rage, for His reply to Dumbledore’s gallantry; though sheer and wispy Dumbledore’s orchestrations be. He hopes to manipulate a master into revealing His unarmored skin, but he has given Lord Voldemort a weapon. The symbol Dumbledore seeks to bleed as a banner is one so easily stolen.

“The thing about Prophecies, Cousin,” Bellatrix hisses through her bared teeth, a snarling grin which glows white in the darkness of the chamber, “is their notorious trickery. Their meaning is malleable, ephemeral. And like the Universe from which they are borne, always in perfect entropy. There are only two Souls who could possibly discern the truth from the riddle, and it is Our Lord and the babe.”

Lord Voldemort bestows his protege with a curling smile. 

“Surely if this child does exist, we must find him,” Dolohov cries to a chorus of murmurs. “At the very least we must crush this assertion that you could be defeated in such an absurd way, My Lord!”

“Most assuredly, the Child does exist,” Lord Voldemort says, and He knows it to be true, can feel the pressure of it weighing down upon Him since the Prophecy was spoken. “He will be the progeny of Dumbledore’s Michael and Gabriel, for only archangels could inspire strength of such magnitude in their offspring.”

“Do you intend for us to destroy him, My Lord?”  

“It would be vulgar to send back a gift the Fates have so generously delivered to Me,” He muses, pleased. “Identify the child who falls within the parameters of the prophecy, but do not approach him. He is Mine to harness.”

They do not understand, but for Bellatrix, who knows how He has touched the very essences of the Natural World and come away with its secrets pulsing in his blood. How the physical rules by which mortals abide cannot bind him, how He no longer toils under the limits of human psychology and understands More.  _ He _ is More.

There is  _ homo sapien _ . He is  _ homo sapien deinde _ . 

The yawning chasm of Immortality, in which Voldemort has alighted, elevates him from the reach of a third of this dimension; time. He sees endlessly forward, his trajectory a pillar of unchanging light in the fluidity of time, and He sees endlessly backward, into the burning first breaths of an unfurling cosmos. Prophecy is a language to which he has the device.

Peter Pettigrew comes to Lord Voldemort days later, solitary and bowed, paves for Him the way to His child, whispers his name, His Harry Potter.

He can recall vaguely the parents, their fearless violence and faces not much older than that of babes themselves. Are these child soldiers, these young flames that flicker and twist on wicks just-lit, capable of giving Him an equal as promised? Could it be that when he steps over their bodies, the sprawl of Michael and Gabriel sent forever into silence, when he sees for the first time the eyes of an infant, that they will reflect as windows all that He can conceive of the universe?

Harry Potter weeps when his mother dies with his surname, his lungs gasping in the clumsy way only children can, but Lord Voldemort assures him that such bonds are easily forgotten, replaced. He lifts him into His embrace, his weight solid and finite, and He tells him that all is well. 

“I shall be your mother,” He vows. “Your father, your lover, your Lord.” 

His child cannot comprehend His oath yet, small and new as he is. Their only witness is the magic which binds Lord Voldemort to His word, and binds them in turn to one another. He, Himself hardly fathoms the depth  of it, and peering into that reddened face, touching the fevered skin, He divines immediately  _ the power the Dark Lord knows not  _ as it sweeps over His being.

Lord Voldemort knows that the infant is made to be More as well. 


	5. Efficacy

“What is the Dark Lord’s prince like?”

Daphne looks up from her game of Gobstones with a glare, but Astoria doesn’t mind it. Ever since Daphne turned seven last month, she’s been terribly snobbish and disagreeable, claiming she doesn’t have time for Astoria’s  _ kiddie stuff _ anymore. As if six is so different from seven! 

“We don’t talk to him much,” Draco says, not looking up from the game. He is losing, his hands splattered with the vile puss in the stones. “He’s always around  _ Him _ .”

“You wouldn’t want to, anyway,” Daphne sneers. “He once made Vincent stick his head in Nagini’s mouth.”

“He told Pansy she must be a Squib when she couldn’t do magic like he can,” Draco adds.

“He doesn’t know which spoon is for pudding and which is for soup. What sort of person doesn’t know that?”

“No person at all, Daphne. No person at all,” Draco says with a shake of his head.

“But!” Astoria can’t contain her shock and disappointment. “He’s the prince! And, and I get to meet him!”

Any moment, now really. 

She glances at the grand clock swinging, swinging. They’ve been in the playroom for an hour already, and the Dark Lord is sure to arrive soon, bringing with Him the heir of His legacy. Is he fun? Smart? Is he… dashing? 

“Was I ever that naive?” Daphne mutters. 

Draco rolls his eyes. 

Astoria stomps back to the couches and reaches into the jar of sweets and pulls out a chocolate frog to watch it melt in her palm while she waits. Daphne is just bitter because everyone knows when  _ she _ met Harry, they didn’t get on at all. She’s sure Harry wouldn’t make Vincent put his head in Nagini’s mouth unless it was all just a silly game, and she can’t imagine Harry would intentionally insult Pansy, who is sensitive by nature anyway, and not knowing anything about cutlery is only maybe the fifth worst sin one could commit, not like the  _ second _ or  _ first _ . 

There is an echoing, warm gong that vibrates through the house from the hearth.

“That’s them!” Astoria cries, heart racing. She looks at herself, her chocolate smeared hand and robes, and panics. “Daphne! I’m not fit to be seen!”

Daphne, who is sprawled on the rug in her wool trousers and afternoon shirt rather than her evening receiving robes, appears to care not a whit. 

Astoria frantically tries to straighten herself, stands by the door, and hides her hand behind her back.

“You’ve got chocolate on your forehead,” Daphne snickers. 

“You—!”

The door opens, the one connecting the playroom to the larger antichamber, and suddenly she can hear all the voices rushing around as the gathered adults mingle.

At first, she doesn’t see him. All she sees are a bunch of boring, shapeless robes gesturing and sweeping about.

Then, a hush falls over the crowd, and  _ He _ appears, tall and terrible. Astoria almost hides behind the doorframe, but she would never forgive herself, and stays where she is right in the doorway, chin up. 

Clasping the Dark Lord’s hand is a boy.

“He’s so…,” Astoria struggles. They’re coming this way, and she gets a good look at him. “...Smallish.”

“What were you expecting?” Draco whispers. “He’s just a kid like us.”

The Dark Lord makes a strange sound, like a sputtering faucet, and it takes a moment for her to realize He is  _ speaking _ , some strange language, cupping Harry’s face and pushing the reluctant boy into the playroom. The Dark Lord sweeps away, paying no mind to the hem of His robe as it’s yanked from Harry’s sullen grip. 

“Prince Harry!” Astoria says with flourish, bowing. “A pleasure to meet your acquaintance.”

She offers him the half melted, twitching leg of the chocolate frog.

“M’not a prince,” he mumbles, accepting the morsel. 

“Told you,” Daphne mutters, but clams up when Harry looks at her.

“What are you playing?” he asks Daphne and Draco, walking into the room. The door shuts behind him, cutting them off from ‘grown-up business’. 

“Only two people can play,” Daphne lies.

“You’ve never played Gobstones?” Astoria asks, mystified.

He shrugs. “Nagini only plays with mice. I normally play games with magic or by flying.”

“You can play Quidditch?” Astoria gasps.

“‘Storia’s only excited because every time she gets on a broom, she falls off the back!” Daphne laughs. 

Astoria feels her face burn. 

“I’d give anything for a game of Quidditch right now,” Draco moans. 

“Too bad Daddy says it’s too cold out today,” Daphne sighs.

Astoria dreams wistfully, peering out the bay window. It would be ever so scenic to fly with the snow falling like it is.

“Take me to your broom shed,” Harry says.

Daphne scowls, sitting up. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? My father won’t let us!”

Harry doesn’t seem all that bothered. “I can do whatever I want.”

He turns to Astoria then, takes her sticky hand in his and looks deep into her eyes. She holds her breath.

“Astoria, I’ll teach you to fly if you show me where the brooms are.”

She grips his hand and runs for the door. 

“‘Storia!” Daphne shouts. There’s a clatter of stones and the sound of hurried feet in pursuit. 

No one stops them in the foyer as they dash past, giggling. They nearly knock a glass of wine from Mr. Lestrange’s hand and their raucous clearly interrupts the discussion going on around the dining table in the room adjoining, but not a single word of rebuke is given.

This is the power of a prince, she realizes, looking back at Harry. 

They are  _ untouchable _ !

The four of them burst out onto the West veranda into knee-deep snow. The cold is biting, but Astoria tucks her one free hand under her arm and pulls Harry down the icy steps and onto the perfect, white lawn. 

“Astoria, it’s  _ freezing _ !” Daphne complains. “Let’s at least get our cloaks!”

“I thought you weren’t a baby anymore,” she replies.

Daphne doesn’t complain again, but inside the shed is a huge relief compared to the open wind. Her robes are soaked through. She points to the rack of brooms in their stands and smiles proudly. 

“I’m ready for my first lesson.”

Harry laughs. He reaches up for the broom on the highest rack, the adult sized one. It’s taller than them all when he stands it up in his hand. Astoria grows worried.

“You don’t want to start with the kid ones?”

“What for?”

Harry leads her out of the shed into the snow again, and Daphne and Draco are quick to grab their own brooms.

“Here, I’ll sit on the back,” Harry says, swinging a leg over the broom. “You sit on the front.”

Astoria gasps, delighted. A broom ride with a prince? She hops on, squeezing the broom with all her strength. Harry pushes off the ground, and Astoria screams.

She can hear Daphne and Draco laughing at her as they zoom around them. She’s just getting her breath back when Harry dips to the ground and scoops snow into his hand. 

“They laugh now,” he tells her, leans forward and races after them. He hits Daphne in the head with the snowball, and it begins a game of tag. 

They are soaked and shivering in minutes.

“We should see who can fly the highest,” Harry says as they float aimlessly in circles.

“A-aren’t you cold?” Astoria asks, shaking. She can’t feel her hands where they haven’t released the broom handle once, and her ears are burning. 

Harry shrugs.

“I’ve been flying on a broom since before I could walk,” Draco says. “I bet I can fly higher than anyone.”

With a jerk, the broom is perpendicular with the ground and Astoria feels herself slip a few inches down the shaft. She falls against Harry as he forces the broom to fly up, up, up. Astoria clutches on with all her might, squeezing her eyes closed. The wind cuts through her wet clothes and takes her breath, and it seems like forever they just keep climbing and climbing, higher and higher, Draco’s taunts following close behind.

“Harry, please stop, I can’t hold on anymore!” she cries.

“Just a little higher!” Harry shouts over the wind. Draco’s voice falls away, and Astoria grows so cold, she has a hard time opening her eyes. 

“Please,” she whispers.

“Look, Astoria. We’re at the top of the world.”

The broom levels, but Astoria just shakes her head.

“Hey, Draco!” Harry calls, and Astoria looks down. She swallows. The house looks like a beetle from this distance and Draco is just a dark smudge. “Race you to the ground!”

They’re falling. 

At first, Astoria can’t even scream, but when she finds her voice, it tears from her painfully. 

“Harry! Harry, stop! Please, stop!”

Her eyes are streaming, and she sees the frozen surface of the big pond below, racing toward them. 

“I can’t swim, Harry! We’ll crash, and I’ll drown!”

At the moment she is certain they’ll smash into bits on the ice, she’s jerked in a different direction. The toe of her boots grind against the frozen surface as they slow, but not enough to avoid smashing into the bank.

The snow pillows her fall, her ears ringing and her body numb. She hears Harry laughing and instantly begins to cry. 

“You were going to kill me!” she wails.

Daphne lands in the snow and runs to her side, broom forgotten.

“He was going to knock me off!” she cries, clinging to her sister’s waist.

Harry’s smile fades. “It was just a game.”

“What is the matter with you!” Daphne shouts at him.

“Please, I just want to go inside, I just want Daddy.”

She hides her face, anything to keep from seeing Harry’s blank eyes, her own reflection staring back, wet and blue from the cold. As if she really had drowned. 

Astoria doesn’t ask about the Dark Lord’s prince anymore after that. 


	6. Fulminate

Lord Voldemort stands a King to His realm. Mighty where others have fallen, with the forbearance to forge the pollutants of lesser beings into greatness; mountains bow to Him.

“This is where Muggle London once stood, my Harry.”

Harry peers at the rubble then up to Lord Voldemort, unimpressed. It’s a half constructed kingdom, a wound of war just beginning to scab. Its edges still fester with embers and lines of black smoke that divide the orange horizon like cellar bars.

“It’s all Yours, now?”

He strokes Harry’s hair. “Ours, pet.”

Harry’s nose wrinkles as the stench of scorched earth wafts to them on their little hill. He is as a shuddering creature of the wood, and he grasps his Lord’s robe.

“Where have all the Muggles gone?”

Lord Voldemort hums.

“The majority have been taken to work-camps in New Wales. Where they can better serve their natural masters. The remaining, my legion killed so that we can continue the Rebirth of the United Kingdom.”

They stroll into the city bounds proper, the jagged entrails of stone buildings a gaping maw. But for the distant rumbling of battle, the electric and mechanical whir of the city has died. Only magical functions remain. Harry runs ahead, turning over rubble and climbing piles of rock. He collects bent nails and brightly colored wires that spark at his touch.

“A tomcat!” Harry cries, peeking under a fallen wall. The creature has been made feral with war and resists as Harry drags it into the light, but the child is determined. It claws the boy’s arms and hisses, and Harry hisses back, teeth bared.

“ _My wild serpent_ ,” He says affectionately and Harry smiles, cat forgotten.

A black-cloaked senturion looms upon every corner of the broken streets. They bow low, foreheads pressed to the rough pavement as they pass, chrome masks reflecting scarlet flame.

“Silver and red were made for each other,” Harry says, and demands a mask from one of His Death Eaters.

She offers it to him without raising her head, eyes closed, as though His little prince were a basilisk. Harry runs back to Him, holding the mask to his small face. His bare feet flash from under his over-long, child’s robe, pink and raised from the abuse of the wilds.

“I am Your Death Eater!”

Voldemort lifts the child, runs a nail down the metallic sheen of the mask’s chin, it’s face forever frozen in a grin.

“My most faithful servant. You would walk upon thorns in your soft flesh to follow me.”

He smears his thumb in the blood on Harry’s scraped arms and cups a small foot in His hand where the skin is raw. Harry hugs His neck.

“I don’t like shoes,” he mumbles as he had every day for the last week. “ _You_ don’t wear shoes, My Lord.”

Lord Voldemort concedes, rubs His stained thumb on Harry’s mouth until the lips match the red tongue that swipes at His sharp nail.

He apparates, feels His atoms twist with Harry’s, their souls as One. If He could keep Harry like this: devoured and contained within Himself; if he were such a specter that only Lord Voldemort could reach, it would still not be enough to satisfy His hunger.  

They appear before the husk of Buckingham Palace. The grassy plot is scorched wine dark, mottled with the sensuous sprawl of nude corpses. They are symmetrically lined in rows, each accounted for, and burning in succession. The walk to the front gate is framed with their frozen faces, their mute screams.

“What’s that smell?” Harry complains, tucks his face into his Lord’s shoulder and neck, his open lips wet on His skin, his puffs of breath searing.

“A more unpleasant way to purge the bodies to be sure, but the debris is an inevitable shelter for filthy, crawling things and there are Muggles among them. There is no stronger message to be sent than that of the stench of their burning queen.” Lord Voldemort tells him.

“I thought Nagini is Queen.”

“The very finest, child.”

The gate opens to them soundlessly. His servants dart about the palace hastily, the cogs of a crumbling polit-bureaucracy smoking at their heels. They freeze at his presence, fold their spines with military precision.

“My Lord and Heir,” Rosier greets with flourish. “Welcome to the New Ministry Palace. Would you care for a tour before we go meet with the Wizengamot?”

“I want to jump from the highest window,” Harry says, wiggling from Lord Voldemort’s arms and running to peer up the towering stairs to the first level.

“Rosier, my General of the North, does Scotland still resist?”

Rosier swallows. “They insist on remaining independently neutral, My Lord. Our army has not gained traction.”

Voldemort smiles.

“My heir might like a tour,” Lord Voldemort says, and watches with pleasure as Rosier pales. “You will entertain him while I am otherwise detained.”

“Of course, My Lord,” Rosier bows, though it pains him. “I must confess, I know nothing of child care...”

“Harry will not hesitate to tell you what he wants.”

The child is exploring the lavish tapestries and gold furnishings, his soiled feet marking his path.

“ _My serpent, Evan Rosier is yours for the evening._ ”

Harry looks upon his new playmate with a grimace. “ _He doesn’t look like much fun._ ”

“ _I have no doubt you’ll think of something._ ”

He leaves Rosier to his fate, Harry’s first command of many echoing along the grand hall of the Ministry.

“Give me your wand.”


	7. Galvanize

Draco has never been alone with the Dark Lord. There’s always been miles of barriers between them, all of a socially constructed nature. What would the Master of all of England want with an eleven year old child, a child other than that of Harry the Horrid? Draco, unlike many of his peers, doesn’t take it personally. He’s not like Pansy, getting an ulcer over it. His mother and father are members of the Inner Circle, after all; his upward mobility in the Dark Lord’s ranks is predestined.

It stands to reason then, that he would have be alone with the Dark Lord  _eventually._

He just hadn’t expected it to fall on the day before he leaves for his very first year at Hogwarts.

“You are a clever, ambitious boy, I’m told,” He says, and the high sound of His voice makes Draco press back into his chair. From the corner of his eye, he can see the writhing creature called Nagini, her tail undulating scant inches from his left foot.

“Yes, My Lord,” Draco answers at His prompting. “It is what I aim to be above all. Ambitious, that is.”

“Above, even, to be my servant?” the Dark Lord asks with a terrible grin.

“Above all, but that, My Lord!” Draco says quickly, amending his mistake. There’s a long, slippery hiss from the serpent, and Draco wonders if he’s imagined the feel of her tongue brushing his exposed ankle. Her muscled body begins to slowly circle his chair. Draco breathes rapidly, grips his knees. He tugs his robes until they pool at his shoes.

The Dark Lord appears tickled.

“Nagini says your heart is that of a rabbit’s. It makes her hunger.”

Draco feels he might fall faint. The Dark Lord turns his back to Draco and his small chair, places both hands on the fireplace mantel.

“If what you say is true, then it will please you to receive my order. If it is not true, then your existence will be shortened significantly.”

“Yes, My Lord,” Draco says in a small voice, giving in to the urge to fold his legs up to his chest, eyeing Nagini’s flickering tongue all the while. She seems to smile up at him.

“You are due at Hogwarts tomorrow, as is my Harry. It will be your duty to be his loyal companion. You will follow him, protect him if need be, serve his needs. He will be your master as I am.”

He turns around, and His eyes glow a scarlet deeper than that of the simmering coals in the hearth.

“Do you understand?”

Draco swallows. Says the only thing he can.

“Yes, My Lord.”

Only, Harry does not take to Hogwarts. Much in the same way that Draco has never taken to Harry. He is sullen and resistant. Contrary for the sake of it, and finds the rules and expectations at the institute wholly incomprehensible. It makes him more the menace than ever.

Draco is the top of his class in weeks, perfect marks in every subject.

Harry doesn’t attend a single lesson, not once.

“You must attend your classes with the rest of the children, Mr. Potter,” Headmaster McGonagall tells him and Draco in her office one evening. As though Draco can do a thing about it! He sees the predictable glare of distaste curling Harry’s features; for the mention of scholarly obligations or the surname  _Potter_ equally as likely.

“The classes are dumb,” Harry says baldly. “It’s much better to practice magic the practical way.”

He means on the unsuspecting House Elves, but for once, has the sense to not say it. Draco sighs in relief.

“And there are mudbloods in all my classes.”

So much for sense!

“ _Mr. Potter_ ,” the Headmaster says in a pinched way. All things considered, she’s been very lenient. “Hogwarts is very different from your home. Scotland, and therefore Hogwarts, is neutral. It is common ground for  _all_ students. This is  _not_ your domain to do as you please!”

Harry’s face grows red. “All the world is My Lord’s domain, and so it’s mine! This was once the province of the great Salazar Slytherin--”

“As I have told you on  _several_ occasions,” Headmaster McGonagall interrupts, her lips trembling with rage, “the four houses no longer exist here. You are as much a Slytherin as Neville Longbottom!”

“That  _blood traitor_ isn’t even half the wizard I am!”

“And yet,” McGonagall says with a deadly tone of voice, “his marks are thrice as good.”

For the first time, Draco is witness to a Harry who is silenced.

“If you do not follow the rules, you will be given detention.”

Harry blinks. “Detention.”

It sounds as though the word is foreign to him.

“Punishment, Mr. Potter,” she reiterates, eyebrows raised.

“Punishment..?”

Draco rolls his eyes with an exaggerated groan.

Headmaster McGonagall appears to lose her patience.

“Off you go, the both of you.  _To class_ _._ ”

Harry hisses something long and viscous, and storms out of the office, and Draco trails reluctantly after. When their afternoon Potions class arrives, Harry doesn’t leave the first year dormitory.

Draco knows that Harry writes to the Dark Lord every day, has since the Welcoming Feast. He’s  never seen Harry receive a reply,  but that does not seem to diminish his determination to make known his every complaint to the Dark Lord.

Their days continue like that uninterrupted. It is a challenge since the other first years all avoid him, but Draco makes many connextions, and Harry makes few. Draco endures every obnoxious order Harry can conceive, subjecting Draco to his own deep unhappiness. Games with complicated rules and even more complicated penalties for losing. Embarrassing stunts at Draco’s expense to cure Harry of boredom. Introductions to all of Draco's friends, though he doesn't mind since it gives Harry someone else to boss around. Only, ironically, the mudbloods are spared of his forced company.

And then, one morning Harry the Horrid is gone.

Draco peeks around corners in apprehension all morning, but by midday and still no sign of the Dark Lord’s heir, he and the rest of the first years give a collective sigh of relief. For once, Draco doesn’t have to spend his day belaboured with the looming spectre that poses such a nuisance! In fact, the whole castle seems much more chipper.

“Where is your ghoul?” Daphne asks him at lunch.

“Who cares?” he asks, beaming.

“We’re going to the quidditch pitch later,” Blaise tells him. “Want to come?”

Draco graciously accepts.

For an entire fortnight, Harry is absent. It’s truly wonderful.

When he returns unannounced to breakfast, Headmaster McGonagall leading him to the seat beside Draco, Harry is dour and quiet.

“I want to go on a vacation,” Ronald Weasley complains from down the table of first years. “Why does Potter get one?”

“Don’t call me that,” Harry mutters, face a thundercloud.

“You know he killed your parents,” Hermione Granger says, matter-of-fact like.

Harry looks up, and Draco hastily leans away from the look on his face. He knows what tends to happen to the people who upset Harry. He suspects Nagini is missing her regular dinners.

“The Dark Lord,” Harry says very fiercely, “is my father and king, and the greatest and most powerful sorcerer to ever live!”

He’s practically standing by the end, voice raised. But when he sees everyone’s cowed faces, Harry seems to control himself. He sits down again. Draco sighs in relief. He isn’t sure what kept Harry from cursing the stupid mudblood, but he isn’t going to complain.

“Of course I know he killed my parents. Everyone knows that,” Harry finally says, and that’s that.

Draco goes to class after breakfast with his friends and only notices as they’re taking their seats that Harry has come too. Harry goes to the class after without a single comment, and the next, and the next.

He does his assigned reading and homework in the library with Draco and the rest of his friends, head bent low and quill scratching furiously. Draco’s a tad peeved Harry isn’t struggling more with catching up. He’s even in the first year Common Room by curfew.

“Where did you go for so long?” Draco asks later in the darkness of their dorm, staring across at each other from their beds.

Harry’s jaw clenches. He rolls over so that his back is to Draco.

“To the Dark Lord, of course.”


	8. Halcyon

 

When Harry looks upon his Lord, a metallic and shining pillar, and he like crawling ivy upon Him, he sees a convalescence of himself, a past and a future; the whisper of an Old promise braided into the soft hairs of a baby’s cheek… He sees the cup of His palm, whose convex matches the shape of his own hand and who drinks in the whole of his finite form, fingers first, until he is made Infinite.

Harry thinks one day his Master will stretch him and mold him until he is as Nigini, coiled and never ending, jaw hinged on Him. A boneless garland for his Lord’s neck, Harry’s angles have learned to grow in proportion to the space against His side. The Dark Lord calls it _nuclear fission_ , the way their atoms mingle and collide. Harry calls it breathing.

“The other children at Hogwarts say things,” Harry whispers. He feels the heat of his own breath pool into the valley of his Lord’s shoulder, chases the warmth with the flush of his cheek and rests skin to skin. He feels the harmony of their Being One, the answer of the Lord’s soul inside him.

They’re on a veranda, somewhere in a hazy German countryside, where they lie together, melted in the sun. There are dozens of villas and patios like it dotting an endless Wild, places that cradle them in an untamed lushness that contrasts so violently with the scorched earth of a recovering war zone. There are dragons a few kilometers east that they’ll be surveying tomorrow. A magical lake that has no bottom a few kilometers south. It is a purely magical region with no taint of mundanity. They Belong.

It is tranquility, relief.

Harry has promised to kill the first Death Eater who intrudes. It will be some more days yet before they are brave enough to test his efficacy, and longer days after that they will wish they hadn’t.

Lord Voldemort hisses like the breeze, a velvet sigh to Harry’s heated skin. He pets Harry’s forehead with the sharp tip of a talon, runs it over and over the zigzag scar, where it rests red and looking always New. It burns, infallible and perfect, the brand of Lord Voldemort’s might.

“I’m sure they have much to say,” He replies, turns the page of a levitated tome, a book Harry cannot read as it is, he is told, written in Cyrillic. “And hold dearly that Hogwarts will protect them meanwhile.”

Harry has seen this brazenness for himself. The effervescent mouth of a Daphne or a Draco when they believe the walls of a Scottish castle are thick enough to mute their words.

They speak about the war.

“Such brave things fall out of a child’s mouth when they are far from home. How obediently they quote their Hobbes to mothers and fathers.”

They speak about their parents and their Muggle slaves. The banned newspapers that they can only see in Northern Ireland. Their brutish fantasies of broken Muggle bodies.

“And how quickly they trade him for Thoreau at Scotland’s borders--”

They speak about kissing.

“Would you kiss Thoreau?” Harry asks.

It occupies them to a frenzy. Harry himself has kissed many times. The fingerprint of his lips can be lifted from the hem of his Lord’s robe, His ankle. His hands. Each of His temples.

 _That isn’t the same_ , they tell him.

How smug they become for a mouth kiss.

They laugh at him for not owning one.

“My eyes have kissed the pages of his anthologies many times, pet. I cannot imagine a kiss to the mouth that birthed them would be any the more illuminating or impressive. Thoreau suffered acutely under the delusions of democracy; egalitarianism. He suffered a schizophrenia.”

Astoria and Draco kissed on the train platform at the end of their Third year. To practice for when they are married, they said.

A promise between lovers, a gift of breath.

Harry had asked if it were a powerful spell, for them to covet it so; a ritual of flesh, an alchemy of saliva. Draco calls him naive.

“ _Would you kiss me?_ ” Harry hisses, leveling his face with that of his Lord’s and grasping the hand that caresses him.

He can see the flare of slitted nostrils, the dilation of His vertical pupils. A hand strokes his head, gentle and consuming.

“ _Child, sweet child_ ,” his Lord coos, the pink tip of his forked tongue flashing bright behind his white mouth. " _Take what you need._ ”

Harry obeys. He leans forward, closes his eyes.

“ _Kiss me,_ ” he begs.


	9. Ictus

“Where is the boy, Tom?”

Albus Dumbledore fancies himself a Medium. He speaks with the dead name of Lord Voldemort’s youth and holds court with pitiably perishable memoirs. He fancies himself a philosopher. Lord Voldemort tells him so.

“I killed Tom, Myself.”

Dumbledore appears as a great flourish and a burning rage; the unmaking of the New World depends on his spectacle, and he thinks himself the god to do deliver it. Lord Voldemort has always remarked to Himself upon the commonality between them. The destiny for greatness. A shared hunger for legend.

Perhaps Dear Albus might have better suited Slytherin.

The divergence is that Albus Dumbledore is not a god. He has not conversed with the Divine laws of this world.

They battle, Lord Voldemort and his paler image, that odious Albus Dumbledore, reactive and violent elements; their antagonism determined by the very properties of their electrons. Chemistry is not compatibility.

“Where is the Potter child?!”

How Lord Voldemort _laughs._

His wand carves new mountains, ravines; commands the earth to devour His enemy.

“That name, too, is dead! I relish your foolishness.”

For a moment, Dumbledore falters, his agile repose stilted, weak. They stand on the English Channel as water walkers, their robes soaked and cumbersome. A misty silhouette of a burning Canterbury glows on the horizon. He will not be satisfied until the flames can be seen from Dunkirk.

He assuages Dumbledore.

“The boy sleeps in My den, and runs to Me when I return. He is My sweetest servant.”

Lord Voldemort duels.

The very air shivers around the aura of His might; space accommodates Him, and gifts Him with volatile vacuums that ripple against His skin and propel His curses.  

“Where is he?!” Dumbledore demands, a ghoul of fury, an inferno in defense of an infestation, a fool who fights for mites.

He is formidable, but Lord Voldemort is the universe spun.

They apparate and wage war on a perch of dead and dying muggles, a burning scape that writhes in the distance with fleeing vermin. Canterbury is but another unnameable British city in the process of Wizardization. In but a moon’s cycle, there will be a village in its place, the mundane and stupid beasts of before a long forgotten blight in _homo sapien_ evolution.

“He is Mine,” He answers simply.

“You cannot keep the boy, Tom!” Dumbledore shouts across the battlefield, a canyon of destruction betwixt. “The prophecy—!”

A strike as fast as lightning shrieks through the air.

They are a heat storm, a monsoon, and Lord Voldemort appreciates His opponent’s skill, how it makes Him thrill with the challenge. He dreams one day His Harry will dance with Him like this, and reshape this indifferent celestial sphere in their wake.

His child is as powerful as undisciplined.

Lord Voldemort will feed him like a wildfire.

“You mean to manipulate him to killing Me. You are welcome to try. He is commanding _My_ army in the east this very day. You need only reach Brussels within the hour to meet Harry der Horrend.”

Lord Voldemort smiles beatifically at Dumbledore’s distaste.

His treasure, his child; how he flares in Lord Voldemort’s mind, the brightest point an eternal constant, as constant as Avogadro. There souls are such that distance is made meaningless— He can turn thousands of kilometers in a single step to reach His child’s side and watch the splash of blood color his skin and scent him with the pall of death and Magic. Always Magic.

The war around them swells and dies as victims grow scarce, and the Death Eaters grow bored of their own savagery. They sing their victory as they march on.

“If this is true,” Dumbledore says softly, solemnly, “it will make no difference to let the Order take the boy.”

Lord Voldemort hisses. “It is My Word that determines the Ferrel winds and the Westerlies. I took a babe and Birthed a monster. An Equal. The child you seek does not exist. Bid him go with you; but he will not.”

“You have caged him!”

“On motherhood’s sweet milk?” Lord Voldemort smiles wickedly. “He has never lamented the taste.”

The duel begins anew, neither willing to defeat nor be defeated. The earth bears the marks of their deadly flirtation, craters carved from wands. They converse better this way, these two old friends or enemies. Lord Voldemort understands Dumbledore with clarity in the sting of his hexes.

Duelship is their Lingua Franca.  

It is clearest to see Albus Dumbledore worships Prophecy. He will fight a war but he will not kill Lord Voldemort. To him, only Harry Potter wields such power and the Right to employ it.  

_Either must die at the hand of the other._

But Albus Dumbledore is a fool.

Lord Voldemort has already killed Harry.


	10. Janiform

 

There is a Manor, an old thing with no name or known origin, only that it is the Lord’s Dominion. It’s location is mystery, and those who upon reflection attempt to remark on The Manor, suddenly find themselves unable. There are scarce known characteristics of The Manor, but one prevails above the others.

Id est, that the Dark Lord’s most precious possession resides there.

Lucius Malfoy on one such lazy morning, finds himself _portkeyed_ to The Manor. A message awaits him at the entry that his Lord will arrive shortly, to be prepared to impart to Him all of his recent progress. It is vital that there be progress to report.

Lucius glances at his engraved pocket watch. The hands swing from _Familial Recreation_ to settle firmly upon _Business Afoot_.

It had been bright at the Malfoy Manor, a pleasant summer morning. He can still hear Narcissa and Draco speaking softly over tea, something about a weekend excursion to Croatia. The windows of The Manor by contrast are dark, a featureless void beyond the glass.

Lucius takes the hall to the Dark Lord’s primary conference chamber, the only room he’s seen before. The secrets of The Manor are concealed behind winding halls that seem to glow an ethereal blue, halls that beg for poor fools looking to lose their way. Lucius does not wish to play the fool.

A door jumps ajar as he passes, and out tumbles the most precious possession.

“Lucius Malfoy,” Harry greets breathlessly, with a boyish grin.

He wears but a large, obviously borrowed open robe, one of Lord Voldemort’s he can assume, and nothing else. Lucius averts his eyes, keenly uncomfortable. He is but a boy in a king’s position, barely fifteen, a reality the Dark Lord’s army tries mightily to forget.

The nature of the relationship has always been suspect.  

Aside, there is something… strange about Harry’s body, strange and unsettling.

There are rumors of course, within the inner circle, that the Dark Lord’s heir is as otherworldly and strange as his Master. It is another matter altogether to see for oneself the unnatural sleekness, the hairlessness, the sheen of scales.

“I’ve done something terribly wicked,” Harry confides with relish.

Lucius belatedly notices the blood soaking his small hands and feet.

“Come see, Lucius, and have a laugh with me.”

Harry grasps Lucius’ arm with his wet, scarlet hand and pulls him into the room.

It is unremarkable, but for the body that sprawls in its center.

“Good Godric,” he gasps. “Is that _Severus Snape_?”

The man lies prone on the rug, his neck torn open. Nagini is coiled around the man, bloodied tongue flickering in the air.

Lucius covers his mouth with a hand.

Harry steps up to Snape’s body, feet dragging carelessly through the blood that’s pooled under Snape’s head. He bends and plucks a stained roll of parchment from the man’s chest.

“You see, I found him writing a letter to Albus Dumbledore. _Harry Potter remains the Dark Lord’s closest companion_ ,” he reads, preening. “ _Rumors of the Potter child’s apparent vampirism remain unsubstantiated_.”

The boy bursts with laughing, holding his stomach.

“A vampire? The Order thought I was a vampire! Why, I could have told them everything in this letter myself.”

He nudges Snape’s slack face with his foot.

“I’m afraid your usefulness was long expired. Poor sod.”

Lucius swallows, his mouth very arid. He knows, with highest certainty, that Severus Snape was named among the most vital instruments in this war, that his life was an orchestration of carefully misled espionage, that it was imperative he remain untouched so as to maintain an image of ignorance; that the Dark Lord did not know He was being double crossed.

He knows this because he is here today to discuss the exact topic.

“I knew what he was, of course,” Harry says with glee, stroking a sullied hand over Nagini’s undulating back. “He was always so _smug_. How mighty the mouse feels afore caught in the mousetrap!”

Harry spins around, and Lucius diverts his gaze once more. The boy is flushed, glowing. Lucius swallows.

What will await Harry when this is discovered?

“You should never think yourself too important to die,” Harry laughs, looking down on Snape. “Though I’m not sure this is a lesson pitiful Severus appreciates so much now.”

Lucius suddenly feels this  diversion has a deliberate message; a message for he, himself.

“Of course, Master Harry,” he says smoothly.

The door behind him creaks, and his Lords stands tall in the entrance, an icy surveyour.

“My Lord!” Harry blossoms with the Dark Lord’s appearance, stepping again into the puddle of blood and tracking his maroon steps all over the carpet. He sinks into Lord Voldemort, plasters his front into Him and clings.

“My treasure,” He says, a hissing whisper of breath. “The one man I bade you must not kill lies dead, and you greet me with a cat’s smile.”

Harry withdraws, face petulant.

“I did it for You. He mocked You by his betrayal!”

“I gave you but one order,” the Dark Lord replies.

Harry turns his back on Him, silent for a moment.

“You once told me I was the sun that sets the day. Yet you would make a man, Severus Snape, more important than me!”

Lucius presses himself upon the dark wall, heart beating and face wet with fear. He has been fortunate enough to avoid the legendary tantrums; it seems fortune has at last abandoned him. Lord Voldemort bears the force of His creature’s rage without challenge. He looks upon Harry unchanged, immovable.

“My Harry has rather forgotten who the Master is,” He says, withdrawing His wand and caressing its length, savoring. “What do you think, Lucius? Does he need to be reminded?”

“You should have killed me at the start, if you were going to make me so worthless. I hate you! _Avada kedavra!_ ”

Lucius is thrown to the floor, locking eyes with Snape’s blank stare. He watches with terror as the acidic green curse slithers through the air from Harry’s wand and into the wall; the place he had been standing moments before.

“My—My Lord,” Lucius stutters, trembling in Snape’s blood. “I—I—You _saved_ me.”

Of all the servants lost to Harry’s rage, for naught a one has the Dark Lord raised a hand in aid.

“Look at me!” Harry screams at the Dark Lord.

“I look at nothing else,” Lord Voldemort says, raising His wand. “ _Crucio_.”

Harry’s scream is terrible. It renders Lucius immobile. He watches the boy writhe and jerk, claw at himself to escape the pain, yet finding no relief. He rips off the robe as though it will free him, becomes covered in blood. It seems to stretch on forever.

At last Harry’s body falls still, the room echoing with his wretched sobs.

“Oh, My Harry,” the Dark Lord sings. He kneels and wraps His fingers under Harry’s jaw to lift his face up. “I would not have to hurt you if only torment did not suit you half so well. Love Me, hate Me; all you feel is Mine.”

Harry curls into the touch, clutching to His hand. He hisses something in the Snake’s Tongue and kisses His palm.

“Lucius.”

Lucius startles and jumps to his feet, eager to escape unscathed.

“Yes, My Lord?” he says, looking away as Harry runs his red hands over Lord Voldemort’s face, smearing Him with blood.

“Retrieve Severus’ hair and go to my antechamber. We will need to conceal this.”

“Yes, My Lord.”


	11. Kintle

Minister Fudge steps down quietly on a Thursday morning, with little fanfare and not a word to the press. It seems overnight the Wizengamot is swept by supremacists newly branded with their radical ideology. Those who are not Death Eaters are their sympathizers, and those who are not sympathizers are bribed around their reservations.

In a mere week, a blink, Molly Weasley has witnessed her peers abandon humanity, decency, to maintain their paltry, wage-based lives, to close their eyes and shuffle papers, to swear allegiance to a new and cruel king.

Wizarding Britain is transformed in a matter of hours.

She is made unrecognizable to Molly; a stranger, disfigured. Where the scum of Wizarding culture once remained in shadow, it crawls into the light, unmet and unchallenged.

They come for the Muggleborns first.

A simple seizure of properties in alphabetical order. The Ministry has a registry, a list, of Muggleborns, for governmental aid, for resources and liaisons, for Wizarding children and their Muggle parents. For arranging visitations and secrecy. For post-graduate stipends.

How were they to know it would come to serve as a blacklist?  

Molly knows it will be only a matter of time for her family to be targeted next. She’s made it no secret what she thinks of blood status.

“You’re Pureblood!” Great Aunt Muriel exclaims, face red and hawkish. She stands between Molly and her half-packed carpet bag. “Keep your head down, swear an oath of loyalty or two, and nothing has to change. Arthur can keep his Ministry position. Don’t uproot your life for nothing!”

“Nothing,” Molly parrots, indignant, _furious._  “Nothing!”

Muriel is unchanged. Molly regrets having agreed to host her for the few days Muriel’s house is being treated for gnome infestation.

“There isn’t that much a difference in Parliament and Autocracy! Not on a day to day basis,” Muriel sniffs, idly adjusting the baubles and springs popping out of a truly alarming chartreuse hat.

Molly gnashes her teeth.

“State sponsored slavery! Torture! Blood supremacy! _To name a few_ , Muriel. They’ve already seized Ted and Andromeda’s estate! Snapped her wand. Her _wand_!”

“Well it wasn’t a very nice estate to begin with, was it?”

Molly forcibly grabs Muriel by the robes and moves her to the side, waving her wand and directing belongings into her bag. The room slowly disappears as it’s swallowed up. She’s already packed away the attic.

“Politics change constantly! In a few years, when this blows over, why, the next Minister may well be a Muggleborn. Think of the children, Molly.”

How dare she, Molly rages, hand coming up to hold her just-slightly rounded stomach. Her Ginerva. Such a wondrous gift, a daughter, but unarguably conceived with ill timing.

“I think of them most of all,” she tells Muriel softly. “There is evil taking root here, and it is my duty _and my desire_ to fight it. I can’t do that here where we are vulnerable. It’s already decided. We’ve got portkeys out of the country. We’re going, Muriel!”

To where the Order is establishing themselves, to Ireland, something Molly keeps to herself. Muriel is a renowned gossip.

There’s a raucous above their heads, the sound of little feet stomping, the chimes of laughter.

“Give it back, Bill!” they hear Charlie laughing.

They look at one another, mouths tense. Muriel steps close, voice lower so as not to disturb the children.

“You have lost your sense, Molly. There is no fighting this. There is only _surviving_. If you run now, you’ll forever be a fugitive.”

“My home has _made_ me a fugitive.”

“You would take your children away to some unknown place. They will never know Hogwarts. Bill has only just got his letter, and you would take that from him?”

Molly sighs, rubs at her temples. She paces, whispers just as fervently.

“There’s no guarantee that Hogwarts will be safe in the coming months. It is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry, the very same Ministry that is right now reigning terror on innocent people!”

Molly sits on the edge of the bed, exhausted. Muriel sits beside her and takes hold of her hand. She pats it gently.

“Things haven’t got so bad, dear,” she says. “The Ministry is only securing suspicious persons for our safety. Everything will settle, and your panic will have been for nothing. If anyone knows the goings on around here, it’s me!”

Molly shakes her head.

“Oh, don’t fuss over it for tonight at least!” Muriel insists. “It’s Hallows Eve, for Merlin’s sake. Have a butterbeer. Amuse yourself with the children. Commune with the dead! They have so much to say on these nights, you know.”

Molly listens to the racing steps on the stairs, the banging of her children rushing in and out of the house, their lighthearted shouts carrying through their knobby home. She stands and walks to the window to watch them. Charlie has Ron lifted on his shoulders as they tumble about the dark yard. George is trying to convince a skittish Percy onto a broom.

“We’ve fought evil once before, when Grindelwald tried to rise to power, and the world remembers who folded and who fought. My family will be remembered for fighting.”

She turns to Muriel, who appears already to have a scathing rebuttal when the room is suffused in a cool blue. A nimble weasel manifests above their heads in the creaking rafters, and her husband’s voice shakes the house whole.

“Godric’s Hollow has been attacked, James and Lily are dead. You must leave the Burrow immediately. They are coming.”

Molly does not cry. She does not waste time to mourn as she rushes to pack only the essentials now, her belongings left half abandoned and forgotten. She does not try to convince Muriel to join them, leaving the woman to her own choice.

She does not look back as she leads her boys to the edge of the property to Apparate away in the night.

She believes firmly that one day she will see this home again, that her family is strong and will persevere in this hour of darkness. That light will triumph.

Fifteen years later, in an Order war room in Ireland and two of her children’s deaths behind her, she believes this still.


	12. Lazaret

The Dark Lord will not dance with Harry.

The sprawling yards of Dover Castle are filled with His Lord’s servants, all twirling and twining over the emerald hills, undulating with a music Harry has never before heard. The sun is high, the heat harsh, and there’s a restlessness in him, a longing to sweat alongside the length of the Dark Lord’s sumptuous figure.

And He will not _dance_ with Harry.

The Inner Circle is clustered at the highest part of the hill, a platform fashioned out of the rubble of the inner bailey walls, where Harry sits sweetly at His Lord’s knee in the shade, curled with Nagini and accepting savory morsels from His Lord’s fingers. He relishes in the discomfort on their faces, those envious and vying Death Eaters, when he licks at the pads of His fingers and trails kisses on His wrist.

“Dance with me, My Lord,” he interrupts loudly over the prostrating Circle, bored at their ceaselessness.

“The only dance worth knowing is the Duel, my pet,” His Lord says. “One day, you and I will dance as never seen before.”

He lowers another dripping morsel to his pouting mouth, and Harry snaps at those fingers, relishes the drawing of blood. The Death Eaters gasp predictably, but the Dark Lord laughs. How He adores to see the beast in Harry, and provoke it so.

He slinks away in a sullen rage, sucking His Lord’s cool blood off his teeth. The Death Eaters don’t dare to jeer, but he feels their contempt.

He now stands on the cusp of the dancing horde in want of a partner.

“Dance with me,” he orders Daphne Greengrass.

She curls her lips at him.

“Oh if only, Dear Prince,” she tells him primmly, and gestures to a queue of admirers. “My card’s all full.”

“Perhaps Astoria, then?” Harry asks innocently.

Daphne glares, but accepts defeat. They step up to one another, Daphne’s hands on his shoulders. She starts a sequence and stumbles when Harry does not follow.

“You don’t know how to dance?” she scowls.

Harry glances up at His Lord who bestows him not a single glance. He grabs Daphne’s waist and pulls her flush against himself. She’s taller; her hair tickles his face.

“Could you look happier?” he complains. “Rapturous, even.”

She follows his gaze, pallid.

“Are you trying to make Him _jealous_?” she hisses. “You’ll get me killed!”

“As if He’d waste the energy,” Harry reassures her, and she has the gall to appear offended.

They turn a few times, Harry’s feet suffering amongst a language he’s never learned, and Daphne endures it with graceful indifference. The music bleeds over the grounds endlessly, melody slinking into melody, hypnotic and vibrating.

“Might I cut in?”

Harry trips as Daphne jerks away. She bends nearly in half bowing so deeply.

“My Lady Lestrange,” she gasps.

Bellatrix Lestrange.

The Lord’s most powerful Commander. Daphne practically faints.

“Dear Heir,” she says, taking him by the waist and drawing him in. “I have not seen you since you were a squalling babe in the Dark Lord’s arm. You have grown to be a sweet picture.”

The dance floor empties as they realize who has stepped into it, and Bellatrix leads him through steps he cannot name. She devours his face as he devours hers, a malicious pair of black eyes, deep set and harrowing. Her nails are as talons on his hip, her lips pale and raw, a testament to the sharp teeth behind them.

She is a crow.

Harry glances, sees the Dark Lord standing, watching them, him and Bella.

“Do not blame us for wanting His attention away from you,” Bellatrix purrs. “He is an irresistible nectar.”

Harry pouts, and Bellatrix takes his hand in hers, spins them around, their robes sweeping together, tangling.

“He is mine. There is no competing.”

“Then you know you do not need to play children’s games to maintain His devotion. It is unwavering, Dearest Prince.”

“He loves His war,” Harry laments. His war, and its accompanying procession of nuisances. Lucius Malfoy, worst of all.

Bellatrix laughs, and it is a cruel jangling. She reminds him of the Dark Lord, her casual savagery. If he were to pry open her mouth and explore with his fingers, he wonders if he’d not find a forked tongue.

“So end it. I have heard many things of the fearsome Prince Harry, but I have not heard of his insecurity,” she mocks him with a gleaming smile.

Harry pushes her away viciously, bares his teeth and hisses. Were he able to spit venom, he would.

“You are flies I so much as swat at!”

She cackles in earnest, and it rings in harmony with the music.

“Then here’s hoping I might evade your righteous hand a while yet, My Dark Heir.”

She is a menace, but of His Lord’s sycophants, she is his favorite. They reconvene, momentarily mollified, and step together more gently. Slowly, they wind their way to the Inner Circle until at last they stand before the Dark Lord.

“My Lord,” Bellatrix bows at the waist, deep. Her battle robes pour in the grass. “It is my greatest pleasure to inform You that I have secured the word of the Giants. They march under Your name.”

“Most vicious Bella,” He hisses with fondness. “Perhaps you might impart some of your success onto your less fortunate peers.”

He gestures to the group of servants, red in their vehement bickering, their worthlessness.

“Perhaps if they spent time on the front in proportion to their time at parties, Lord,” she suggests slyly.

“ _Yesss_ ,” He draws out, eyeing his precious bureaucrats with relish. They sweat at the collar. “We mustn’t let ourselves become stifled. You’d appreciate the fresh air of battle, wouldn’t you? Lucius? Pius?”

“Whatever My Lord believes is best,” Lucius pants like the loyal dog he is. Harry rolls his eyes. “Until we claim Scotland, and forever after, my wand is Yours to command.”

Scotland.

_...Scotland_.

“My Lord.”

All turn to him as he demands it, and Harry steps up to Him until his cheek rests in His silver veined palm.

“These countless paws fondle greedily for Scotland, yet they glance off its shining surface with little effect.”

“My sweet child. You have shown little interest in war thus far.”

“If You have a want, it is my purpose to retrieve it. I will accomplish for You where hundreds have failed.”

The Dark Lord strokes his soft cheek, his bleeding eyes tender and covetous.

“And what will you deliver to Me, General?”

Harry turns to their audience, raises his chin to look down upon them.

“Hogwarts.”


End file.
